A more positive way forward, I'd politely suggest, would be simply to scrap the whole thing and start afresh. Dump the name, dump the format and create something totally new.

By all means keep some or even all of the remaining presenters – Matt Le Blanc has been one of the few plus points – but let them throw off the chains and do things differently. Give them a blank slate. Let them make a show that's truly their own.

Why? Well, we've said it God knows how many times already, haven't we? Top Gear as it stands will always be seen as Jeremy Clarkson's show. Or, rather, Clarkson, Hammond and May's.

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Sure, the format has been tweaked here and there under Evans' regime, but not to any major degree. It still looks the same, sounds the same (albeit shoutier, of course), carries most of the same regular items, even introduces The Stig the same way Clarkson did.

So it's impossible not to make direct comparisons with the old version. And when those comparisons are made, there's only ever going to be one winner.

Even if you happened to loathe Clarkson and his gang, you can't deny they stamped their identity on the programme, turned it into something dramatically different from anything else on British TV, made it a must-watch for millions, not just petrolheads but people like me, who don't give a flying toss about cars but who loved its unpredictability, it's political incorrectness, its refusal to hold back.

Once Clarkson and co. were gone, the BBC were left with a hollow shell of a programme. But they stubbornly refused to acknowledge that.

The way they saw it, they still had the rights to the Top Gear name and the hugely lucrative format, so, hey, no worries, business as usual. After all, no one presenter – or team of presenters – is ever bigger than the show itself, right?

Wrong. Wrongitty-wrongitty-wrong. Clarkson and co. simply WERE Top Gear – not from day one, I grant you, but certainly by the time they left – and anybody else who tries to step into their shoes, however talented and however much they love cars, will always now be seen as a pale – and, at times, embarrassingly awkward – imitation.

Chris Evans QUITS Top Gear

Chris Evan has QUIT Top Gear.

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Was quitting Top Gear the right thing to do?

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Chris Evans is still a great broadcaster but to be at his best he needs total creative freedom. The rigid Top Gear format never allowed him that. For him and his team, it must have been like buying a house and then being told you had to keep all the previous owner's furniture.

For us, the viewers, it's been like watching, say, the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger. Or, to quote an example that really has happened, Queen drafting in a replacement for the blatantly irreplaceable Freddie Mercury.

The BBC had their reasons for getting rid of Jeremy Clarkson, but it was a decision that was always going to inflict serious wounds on Top Gear itself, however much they've tried to pretend otherwise.

It gives me no pleasure to say it, but those wounds now look fatal. It's time to put it out of its misery.

Read Mike Ward's TV previews every day in your Daily Star. Follow him on Twitter @mikewardontv